Are you a perfectionist? If so, chances are you’re making your life harder than it has to be. Perfectionism is not the same as striving to be your best. It’s not healthy because we push ourselves beyond sensible limits resulting in anxiety.

According to Wikipedia: “Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self- evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.”

People with self-critical perfectionist tendencies are intimated by their own high standards and may feel they can’t reach their own goals. And that’s when negative self-talk creeps in and we hear the voice in our head saying things like, “I’m not good enough” – which is a very common thought, unfortunately.

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The subject of this month’s blog is phobias.   As I write, I am presently on my annual ski pilgrimage in Whistler, Canada enjoying a lovely ski holiday and remain grateful that I no longer suffer from the debilitating phobia I used to have with ski gondolas.

Yes, I said ski gondolas! What?!

I have been skiing since I was a teenager. I never gave being transported up the mountain in a gondola a second thought and then, BAM, one day in my late 30’s, I found myself terrified inside the gondola. I felt as though I was trapped. I began to have heart palpitations, my palms began to sweat and I had butterflies in my stomach, I was engrossed in panic.

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I forgot my eyebrow tweezers and there isn’t a lick of make-up in sight on my face. The roots of my hair are in full view for the world to see and who cares? Certainly not me. I find the vacation spa experience liberating.

I am writing my blog from a gorgeous wellness sanctuary in Koh Samui, Thailand. It’s humid as hell here because it has rained hard off and on, in that magical sort of way rain falls in the tropics. A deluge rather than a downpour. I have never minded rain in the tropics because I love to swim in the warm rain and so I have. I’ve been swimming a lot, every day in fact, sometimes twice a day.

And for those of you who read my last blog, you know I have come here to restore my body because I’ve been suffering from adrenal fatigue. From my perspective one of the best things to do to restore one’s mind and body is to do the things that we love and leave all of the ‘should’s’ to the side.   Happily in this wellness sanctuary there is nothing that I should be doing.

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Following on from  February’s blog I received a lovely comment from Gary, a lawyer in San Francisco.

“Wow, Pam, powerful and interesting.  Still ‘striving to achieve’ and have to learn to give myself permission to break that pattern.  Thank you for sharing.” – Gary

I spent the Christmas holidays touring the pyramids in Cairo and temples of the Nile Valley in Egypt. It was a jam-packed schedule and one I wouldn’t want to repeat any time soon. As a result, I didn’t write a blog in January. I haven’t missed a month since I started blogging so I had a twinge of guilt and then decided that it’s okay to miss a blog now and then. After all, who’s counting other than me?

After a lifetime of pushing myself to do more, be more, I have decided to relax about it all. I have nothing left to prove. I’m in the enviable spot of not having to answer to anyone other than me, myself and I and she’s given up being a taskmaster. :>) I’ve known this is something I have needed to do for some time but it’s one thing to know something intellectually and quite another to KNOW it deep down in one’s heart.

Now in my heart of hearts, I’m choosing to break yet another pattern, as it’s no longer serving me. The pattern is ‘striving to achieve’. And I’m embracing the pattern of loving myself unconditionally, quirks and all.

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